Burn or Build Bridges

As many of you know I am a very loyal member of the American Dental Hygienists' Association (ADHA). I am president-elect for the Southern Component of Utah Dental Hygienists' Association (UDHA). I attend every meeting we have. I pay my membership dues and pray all RDH's everywhere do the same. So my friend and co-worker Candice is an alternate delegate for UDHA. As such she attends board meetings in Salt Lake City which is 3.5 hrs from Cedar. She too is dedicated to our profession. Wednesday she reported what was discussed at the board meeting at our Southern Component meeting. She stated the Monty Thompson (president of Utah Dental Association-UDA) was in attendance. Now I need to give a bit of background. As a So Component we organized (ok Danyelle did) a Spring Seminar the same weekend as the UDA spring seminar in St George. We had 2 speakers and offered 6 CE credits. It was pretty well attended. We had communications with Mr. Thompson and he was very cooperative. He did everything in his power to give us free advertising and helped organize it. He was so helpful. We as a Southern Component appreciate him and his efforts. We also noticed that this years UDA meeting had several dental hygiene oriented speakers. I thought that was amazing. While I was not as enthralled by Ester Wilkins as a lot of people the fact that she was there by invitation of utah dentists was amazing.

From my point of view the UDA has been very accommodating and communicative with the RDH of Utah. I have a respect for this man and think he is doing a great job. I guess I am the one of the few. At this UDHA board meeting the leaders of UDHA did not find him to be open to communication, helpful, etc. He mentioned that the dentists of Ut do not like the new dental hygiene school (UCDH). Now this is another can of worms...in short it is a private school who is graduating about 50 students every 18 months. He brought up a suggestion that the RDH and DDS and DMD get together and go to the Board of Regents and see what can be done about closing the school. The UDHA board was not interested which brings up confirmation to me that they have been integrated by UCDH. I have felt that UCDH played everything very well. They opened the school w/o talking to the RDH or UDA just the Board of Regents. They then ran for offices on the UDHA board and so now when the UDA wants to discuss the future of dental hygiene and the flooded market no communication is had.

I am sadly disappointed in this. I know I should have run for office on the UDHA board but I live so far away and felt that I would not get the votes because everyone votes for their friends...popularity contest all over again. So I am doing my part by holding together the So component. We are embarrassingly small compared to the other components in UT and our percentage of member RDH is small. I feel that when the UDA wants to open communication lines and try to end the animosity between the two groups we should let them. I know there are some strong opinions in the Salt Lake and Northern components. I know they have had to fight for some serious things. But I also know now is the time to mend the broken bridges NOT burn them to the ground. These of course are my feelings and I would welcome any dialog on the subject. I feel being a RDH is essential for the oral health of the world but we need to work with the dentisits. I also feel that we need to govern ourselves and not be under the thumb of the dentists. I guess there is a fine line and I am just learning where I stand.